


primary

by minarchy



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Artistic Sensibilities, Banter, F/M, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minarchy/pseuds/minarchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for a prompt on 1stclass_kink:<br/>Raven paints - or has some artistic talent that requires something other than pencil and paper - and, when she leaves Charles to join Erik, she leaves all her art supplies behind. She mentions, offhand, to Azazel how much she misses her creative outlet and, the next day, he gives her a set of acrylics - or pastels, whatever - with some canvases and basic brushes.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> de-anon from the kink meme. original thread here

**translations:**  
neschastnyĭ | unhappy  
koshechka | kitten/little cat (fem.)  
chush' | nonsense

 

They didn't go back to the mansion, after. It wasn't safe, nor was it feasible, and Raven was glad, mostly. She didn't want to have to rush through the building, gathering together her meagre belongings and then slinking away, like a thief in the night.

 _You never have to steal again_ , he'd said, and she didn't want to make him break his promise.

She didn't need clothes, anyway, her mutation took care of that; and besides, Angel was willing to share with her. Raven got the distinct impression that the other girl had missed female companionship, and she was happy to spend time with her. She didn't condone Angel leaving after Shaw had killed Darwin (because he had _just killed Darwin why the fuck would you leave with him_ ) but she didn't condemn her for her decisions. They were on the same side now, after all. And Charles never did stand for her holding grudges.

Still, there were things that she had left behind, a few keepsakes that she had risked becoming attached to because everything was so _stable_ once Cain had finally left them and they were alone: her ballet shoes (not that they would fit this, her natural form; but since when did that matter?), a Fair Isle jumper – a Christmas present from Charles, even though it was never really cold enough for her to register the need for layers. Trinkets. Memories.

Charles had gone to Oxford, and Raven had been required to entertain herself _safely_ whilst he was out; she took classes, in whatever took her fancy – because they were never short of money, after all, and Charles approved when she showed desire to improve her knowledge base.

 

She had liked watercolours best, because of the way that the colours blended and blurred at the edges. Sometimes, she would stand in front of the mirror and see if she could make her skin do that, make the textures and hues bleed into one another until it was difficult to tell where one ended and another began.

Training, Erik called it, when he came into her room once and found her making the swatches creep over her skin. She didn't tell him that she was only drawing on herself because she couldn't do it anywhere else.

"You are going to tell me why you are _neschastnyĭ_ ," Azazel said, appearing behind her as she watched the sun wash colour back into the sky. Raven didn't understand Russian, but his knowing expression and the way that he squatted next to her acted as a good enough translator.

"I –" She was embarrassed, suddenly; not that she needed to be, Raven _knew_ that, but it felt silly and childish to be moping just because she didn't have any art equipment. "I miss painting," she said, in a rush. "I used to – but all my stuff is in the mansion, and. Yeah. That's not going to happen."

"You used to paint?" Azazel sounded genuinely surprised, before touching her arm with one finger. "Of course," he said. "You would like colour."

Smiling, she leant back against the cool tiles of the roof. "It's ridiculous, I know," she said. "We're at war, and I'm whining over _paint_."

" _Chush́._ " Azazel's tail flicked through the air where another would have waved a hand. Raven knew just how prehensive it was, because Azazel had no qualms about using it as a fifth limb during their training sessions, with just as much deadly (and painful) accuracy as an arm. "We are hardly at war, _koshechka_. The humans barely know we exist."

"So I'm still ridiculous, then?" Raven said, turning her head to look at him.

"You are young," he said, which rankled. "And _blue_."

"You're red," she retorted; the immediate counter a reflex that she had yet to train herself out of, after years of arguing with Charles.

"Red is a good colour," Azazel said, winking at her, before vanishing in a haze and reek.

 

Three days later, Raven found a wooden box on her bed. She had been around enough of them to recognise a portable art case when she saw one, but she had never used one that folded away so intricately as this one; the legs of the easel swinging about on hinges that let them form the compartments for the paints and brushes.

"Thank you," she said, much later, when she had finally found Azazel (who did not like to be pinned, and was easily the most useful of their little brotherhood at he present moment).

He looked down at her from his position sitting above the gate, looking every inch the demon, with his skin flaring vermillion in the late afternoon sun and his tail looped lazily around one of the metal spikes. "You are welcome," he said, easily.

"I've never used acrylics before," Raven added, having climbed the gate herself. It wasn't particularly comfortable, trying to perch on a narrow strip of metal, especially seeing as it had spent the entire day roasting in the sun. She pursed her lips, casting about for a solution. Azazel was seated higher than she was ( _in the only comfortable place, no doubt_ , she thought); she shifted herself through the bars to tug on his leg, bracing it against another section of the gate before settling herself on his shin. He seemed surprised, but amused, and he didn't try to kick her off (which she was grateful for, considering there wasn't a pool for her to land in this time).

"Normally I would use watercolours," she added, after a pause. "They were –" _my favourite_ , she was going to add, before realising that that would probably sound rude.

"I do not know much about paint," Azazel said, slowly, "but it is my understanding that acrylics are waterproof. That is something that might be useful if Janos keeps becoming angry when near a body of water."

Raven laughed, remembering how _very wet_ everything had become when Riptide had spun a whirlpool through the house in a fit of rage.

"Thank you," she repeated, leaning back against Azazel's leg and the clunky iron filligree of the gate. His tail brushed her hair back from her neck, whispering across her skin.

"You're welcome," he said.

 

Later, Raven set up the easel and palette in front of her balcony doors, and chewed the end of her paint brush. They got some seriously spectacular sunsets from their mountainside house, and sunsets were a good place for her to start, she thought; she had painted a lot of sunsets. Charles had enjoyed pictures of the sky.

Raven smiled, and mixed her grayscale palette, eyes on the single tube of colour that she had out and waiting. You didn't need a rainbow to paint a picture, after all. Against the stark off-white of the canvas, it was the most violent shade of red that she had ever seen.


End file.
